Sweet Slumber
by Heart of Faye
Summary: Pairing: Scotty and Frannie. A murder mystery novelist fell asleep at the wheel and died in a wreck. Turns out his sleep was induced. Can you guess what that means? Yep. The Cold Case unit goes to work. Case intoduced in 2 chap.


**Author's Note**

Hi, everybody. This is my first CC fanfic. Actually, it's my first fanfic on this site, ever, so feedback is going to be really important to me. Review if you think I should continue. Do I own Cold Case? Yeah, sure I do. And if you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd just love for you to buy. Anyway, happy reading.

**Chapter 1**

Frannie Ching flopped into the deep cushioned leather chair behind her desk, took a deep breath, allowed herself to relax. The day had been a blur, one of those days where it was one thing right after another. She stretched, suddenly aware of the empty ache in her stomach. It was 6:00 in the evening, and her idea of breakfast had been extra whipping on her mocha. Not exactly the stuff health is made of, she admitted to herself.

On top of the hunger, her eyes burned, they were pretty strained and tired. She vaguely wondered if she needed glasses or contacts...just for reading if nothing else. Automatically, she filed the concept away for future consideration, while she continued to take stock of herself, for the first time today. Her head ached, and as soon as she got home and worked up the energy, she was digging up some asprin, yes sir. Her feet also ached. If it weren't for her comfortable, but stylish shoes she would be in a heap of trouble. As it was, her feet could stand a good soak, like the rest of her, as she soon as she got home.

Still, all that aside, she had an incredible sense of satisfaction glowing inside, one that made her smile. As exhausting and sometimes grim as her job could get, she loved it. She felt incredibly blessed. Most people trudged through their jobs, just trying to make ends meet, counting the hours until they could clock out. Not her. It seemed like her career made her thrive.

Distinctly, she remembered the first time she'd heard her calling. She'd been fourteen, a freshman, taking intro to biology. She had been more skinny arms and legs than anything else in those days, a desperately shy teenager with a million complexes, the reassurance of her parents only going so far. School was as much her escape as her torment, as she recalled. She was a gifted student, bright and eager to learn...except in shop, anyway. Homework was the easy part. Relating to the other kids was another story. There were as many clicks as there were subjects, and Frannie had yet to find a way into a single one. Her social frusteration just made her hit the books all the harder.

Biology was her favorite subject. Out of the other thirty odd other kids, she was probably one of the very few that actually looked forward to the class. But it had been their first disection that got the wheels in Frannie's head really turning. The teacher, Ms. Wick, had brought in a dead frog for each student, putting them in groups, and setting them to work. Some students were disgusted by the lab, a few even getting physically ill during the dissection took place. Most endured the process indifferently, mindful of their grades. Frannie had fallen into neither group. She had been fascinated, dutifully recording her data, absorbing the new territory before her.

Fifteen years later, here she was. Instead of frogs, she had moved onto people, searching the body for clues. Some might have called her a ghoul, and she knew her own mother wasn't crazy about her vocation. She could hear her voice in her head, scolding her in Chinese, what she usually spoke around her daughter. "If you are going to cut into someone, why can't you be a doctor? That would be something to be proud of at least, but a coroner?" It was a familiar refrain, and Frannie had learned to let the comment, and the digust of others, roll off her back. She had found her niche, that was the important thing.

Her day still wasn't over yet, she reminded herself grudgingly. She still had a small stack of paperwork she had to wade through, and there was no time like the present. With a sigh, she scooted her chair forward, prepared to dig in. An hour, give or take, and she'd be able to pack up and go. Her plans for the evening consisted of warming up the pizza in her fridge, soaking in a nice, hot bath, and hitting the sack. 6:00 A.M. came at you awful early. It was a typical night in Frannie Ching's life.

_So what? _She wondered mentally. _Some people just have quiet lives. Not exactly a hanging offense._ Truth was, Frannie would trade in drama for peace and quiet any day of the week. She considered herself a good judge, since she'd had shares of both. With that in mind, she got down to work.

A little over an hour later, purse strap over her coat clad shoulder, Frannie was on her way out, shivering against the chill of the winter night. Damn, but she hated the cold. She looked up and saw she wasn't the only one heading out.

Scotty Valens, she thought, and took a minute to consider the handsome latino heading out of the door marked headquarters. Definite eye candy, she decided with an appreciative feminine sigh. From what she'd observed, he didn't have a problem with confidence, and it was easy to see why. He was also a damn good detective. A bit raw at times, from what she'd heard through the grapevine, but was a definite asset to the Cold Case division. She had the feeling though, that if anybody could benefit from a little peace, it was Scotty Valens.

"Hey, Frannie! Looking good." He called out, sauntering on over. Yep, no sign of insecurity whatsoever.

"Thanks. Right back at you." Frannie returned the compliment in a off-handed way, shoving her hands into gloves. She started shivered again. "Lousy weather we're having."

"Ah, it ain't too bad," Scotty countered conversationally, falling into step beside her. "That's part of the package, living in Philly."

"It's great in Philly, except for winters. Give me a heat wave anytime, and a nice ocean wave to ride to go along with it." She smiled sentimentally.

"Never took you for a surfer, Frannie. Although, I gotta say, seeing you in a bikini wouldn't be too much of hardship." He wriggled his eyebrows.

"You'd be disappointed, then. I surf in shorts, and a T-Shirt. Sorry," she said dryly.

"Just kill off all my fantasies, why don't you?" He chuckled, a warm, low sound that had a warm tug pulling in her stomach. "Grow up near the water, huh?"

"Uh-huh. San Francisco." A place that held a lot of memories, good, bad, and everything in between. "You ever surf, Valens?"

"Not really my thing. So, what brought you to Philly?"

"Long story," she answered vaguely, not about to get that personal with an acquaintance. He nodded, and to her relief, he didn't seem inclined to pursue it. She realized he probably had a lot of his own long stories. "Where's your ride?" she asked suddenly, gesturing around the parking lot.

"I don't got one of those. I have to slide by with taking the bus. You wouldn't happen to have room in your car for a passanger, would ya?" He suddenly looked so hopeful, almost like a little kid.

It occured to Frannie that she could have searched for a polite evasion, but being in close confines with him didn't seem like such a sacrifice. She decided not to pick the implications of that apart. "Where do you live?" Scotty told her the address, and it occured to her, it wasn't too far from her own place. She wouldn't even be going out of her way more than a few minutes. There was no reason to turn him down. It would have been petty to refuse.

"I guess I can make room for you. Hop on in." She walked the short distance that was left between her and her car, pressed the unlock button on her key ring, threw her purse in the back, and slid into the driver's seat.

As she slid on her seatbelt, he followed suit, a comfortable silence between them. Her stomach, with its wonderful timing, took the opportunity to growl like an irritated bear. "Hungry?" Scotty asked innocently.

"Apparently," she muttered, shoving the key in the ignition.

"I could really go for a burger. You game?" Scotty asked. "My treat, since you're playing chafferer."

Thoughts of the pizza in her fridge floated through Frannie's mind, but suddenly, it didn't appeal to her at all. "Fries, too?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Hey, I'm a big spender," Scotty said solemly, with a twinkle in his eye. "Anything you want."

"I'm game," she answered simply. The bath could wait, she decided. She pulled the car into drive, the lights automatically turning on.

"Where did you grow up, Valens?" She wouldn't have admitted it, but her curiousity level was high when it came to him. She'd seen him around for two years give or take, even danced with him once or twice at various parties, but except for what she got from the gossip mill, she knew hardly anything about him.

"A Philly boy, all my life." He paused, like he was weighing something, then elaborated. "My Pops came over from Cuba, and my Ma from Puerto Rico." There was pride there. He was American, yes, but he didn't forget his heritage.

"Any siblings?" Somehow, she pictured a huge family, lots of laughter, shouting, and tears, a colorful, choatic household. What she pictured was very unlike her house growing up.

"Four." Unconscious affection entered his voice. "Three brothers and a sister, Katie. I always felt kind of bad for her and Ma. They were outnumbered, and we took advantage of it. On top of it, she's the baby. She never could get a boyfriend in high school."

"Chased them off, huh?" She thought of her own brother, and wondered if he would have ever bothered chasing off a potiental boyfriend, if there had been such a thing back then. The image wouldn't compute. "Were you just being mean, or protective?"

"Katie's real innocent. Don't know how she pulled it off, growing up with all of us, but she did. Plus, she's a real knock-out, a bad combination at that age. She needed watching out for. Not that she saw it that way, not then. She got over it." He grinned, then turned his full attention on her. "You got any siblings?"

"A brother. Fred," she said without any infliction. She wished that her brother inspired the same effortless and boundless affection Scotty's siblings obviously did with him, but nothing like that was there.

"Not close, huh?"

"Something like that. Sometimes people don't click. Blood doesn't always guarantee that. It's nice when siblings are close, though." She deliberately lightened the tone of her voice. She realized why Scotty was so good at his job. He had a knack for making people want to talk to him. Even if it was personal. She just wished he wouldn't use his bag of tricks against her. She felt a stab of resentment, then scolded herself. Scotty wasn't trying to pump her for information. _She_ was the one who had started up with the questions, she reminded herself. At least, the round that had led to this.

"You really should, you know." He made the comment out of left field, and she tensed up.

"Should what?" she asked tersely.

"Wear a bikini when you surf." His tone and grin were pure mischief, and just like that, the tension fled as surprised laughter all but ripped through her. It wasn't even the comment...it was just...well, _him_.

"It's a thought," she managed, not only amused, but grateful for the change in topic. She didn't mention that her mother would have never let her wear one. A one-piece would have been stretching it, and that's if her father had been on her side. "Do you wear many bikinis, Valens?"

"I wore one once." Frannie took a good look at his face, to see if he was serious, and her eyes widened when it looked like he was. "I was a freshman in high school. Mom and Pops were never big on allowance, so us kids were always on the look-out for some quick cash. We'd been mowing lawns and weeding garden beds since we could practically walk, but the dough never stretched for long. So, my pal Gary Perez, who had money to burn because his dad was a big-shot business executive, offers me fifty bucks...if I wear the bikini. You can guess the rest."

"I can't believe you actually did it. Or maybe I can." She shook her head, laughing again. "Did he pay you the money?"

"Fifty bucks to him was like a nickle to most people, so it was no skin off his back. I don't think he actually thought I'd have the balls to do it. I did fill out the two piece nicely, though."

"Yeah, I bet. You probably caused quite a stir on the beach that day." Frannie knew she would have gladly given up fifty dollars of her own money to see _that _sight.

"You do what you can." There was no sign of embrassment on that sinfully good looking face of his, and she couldn't help but admire that.

Most of the guys she'd ever known would have squirmed just thinking about something like that. They wouldn't have done it in the first place. Because they took themselves too seriously, she thought with a hint of scorn. She realized she found Scotty Valens' good humor as attractive as the rest of him.

"So, what got you into cutting up bodies for a living?" Scotty asked after a few minutes.

"There's a lot more to it than that," Frannie told him with a little smile.

"Yeah? Like what?" The question wasn't flippant, he sounded like he genuinely wanted to know.

"I don't want to bore you with the details," she hedged, having made that mistake in the past. Men, she'd found, were more interested in exploring a woman's anatomy than hearing about it. _Not that Scotty is interested in me like that_, she qualified to herself quickly.

"Okay, then tell me how you got into your line of work. I'll just get you drunk later, and pry the rest out of you." He winked.

"I'm not much of a booze hound," Frannie told him primly, but mirth gleamed in her eyes. While they pulled into the parking lot of the burger joint she told him the story of the biology class, skipping over her inferior status in the high school social order, and all the rest of her embrassments. No, she wasn't revisiting that one, she decided as they walked towards the brightly lit building. Especially not for someone who had probably never known an awkward moment in his life.

"So you were a brain even then, eh, Frannie?" He opened the door for her, then followed.

"I guess," she agreed. "Academics always just came easy, and good thing too. Education was important to my parents, especially my father." Not that her mother had been particularly proud of her daughter's near straight A's. She would have much rather Fred had got the good grades instead of constant F's, D's, and sometimes a rare C.

"Mine were big on it too. They didn't want us living hand to mouth for the rest of our lives. I can't say I took to it the way you did, but I did okay. I gotta admit though, I had my mind on other things." He sounded wistful, and Frannie couldn't help but wonder if he meant Elisa.

"That's not uncommon," she pointed out gently. "Class is usually the last place a teenager wants to be."

"Tell me about it." He smiled wryly as they walked up to the counter. He ordered a burger with everything on it but the kitchen sink, with a green salad along with a medium drink. Frannie opted for a chicken burger and fries with a small drink. They were given paper cups and an order number. Scotty paid the small bill and they headed over to get their drinks.

While he got a coke, and Frannie a sprite, she glanced around the nearly empty fast food joint, the floors in need of a good mop, the windows dingy. A girl trudged over to the windows, a mop and bucket in her hands. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, with so much metal in her face, she literally gleamed in the harsh light. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but Frannie felt outrageously content to be there. _Must be the hunger affecting my brain._

"Hey, Frannie. Only the best, right? Your table, Madmosielle?" He made a sweeping gesture, sliding into a French accent that sounded surprisingly authentic.

"That's not bad," she told him as she parked herself into the booth opposite of him. "Maybe you should have been an actor."

"I was, in high school." Scotty took a sip of his coke, winced, put it down quickly. "I graced the stage many a time."

"I can picture that," Frannie said dryly. Cautiously, she took a sip of her own drink, and saw what the problem was. To say it was a little flat was an understatement.

"Is that your suble way of telling me I'm a ham?" He manevered his way out of his jacket, and draped it over his chair.

"If the shoe fits, wear it, Valens," she advised with a smirk.

"Ouch," he rubbed at his heart, then grinned. "Hey, do me a favor, will ya? Call me by my first name. When you call me 'Valens' I always feel like you're having a joke at my expense."

"I guess I can do that," Frannie agreed with a mock-reluctant sigh. She decided to neither confirm or deny the joke part, though.

For the rest of the evening, they chatted, joked, talked about movies, bad and good, swaped gossip from the rumor mill, and enjoyed each other's company. Frannie laughed until her sides ached, and realized she hadn't had this much fun in too long. She felt like a teenage girl on a first date. Not that her first date had been all that great. It had been an awkward exercise in endurance. Not to mention, she wasn't on an actual date with Scotty. It was just a friendly evening, between acquaintances, probably an isolated incident. Still, she knew that she would enjoy the memory from this night for a long time to come.

The evening came to a stop all too soon when Frannie pulled up at his apartment building. Her watch told her that it was 10:45, and she had to do a double take. She'd had no idea it was that late. Time had just flown by.

"Thanks for dinner, Scotty."

"The atmosphere bit the big one, but the company was great." He smiled warmly at her, and started feeling the now familiar tugs in her stomach, her heart beating a little faster. Infatuation? she wondered nervously. "Maybe we could do it again, sometime, and I don't mean clog our arteries."

"What did you have in mind?" She managed to sound off-hand, even a surge of excitement went through her system. Just basic chemistry, she reminded herself. Nothing to it.

"Maybe we could catch a movie, shoot some pool." He shrugged. "Look, I'm open to suggestions."

Even though his tone was casual, what he was suggesting sounded like a real date, not just a spontaneous bite to eat. At least, that's how she was reading it. The bad luck for her was that she wasn't exactly an expert at reading men. "That sounds fun. It's just that I don't know how to play pool. I'd like to learn, though. If you're up to teaching me," she teased.

"Just let the ol' pro show you how it's done," Scotty told her, cocky. He wore the attitude well she decided. "You game for Friday, say 7:30? We could meet in the parking lot at work?"

"Sounds like a plan," Frannie said with a tilt of her head. "Now, scoot. I want to get home before next week."

"Sure thing." He shoved his arms through his jacket, opened his car door. The rush of cold air made Frannie start shivering all over again. "Thanks for the ride, Frannie." He gave her shoulder a light squeeze, and hopped out of the car. He gave a friendly wave at the entrance, which she returned, then disappeared inside.

She stayed where she was for a minute, absorbing the events of the evening. For the first time in a long time, she had a date for Friday night. She had a brief moment of doubt. Maybe she wasn't up to dealing with Scotty Valens. He was a little out of her league, that was for sure. Drop dead gorgeous, charming, decent, intelligent, and funny guys didn't normally give her the time of day. She was usually luck to get 2 or maybe 3 out of 5. Plus, she was still vulnerable and shaky after...

_No, _she inwardly snapped. She wasn't getting into that, not right now. That was three years ago, and she'd made progress. Scotty wouldn't hurt her, he just wasn't the type. And hadn't she had a crush on him since she'd first met him? Just a reaction to his good looks, of course, and it was definitely mild, but tonight it had intensified. Plus, she'd already agreed, and it wasn't like he'd gotten down on one knee. It was just a movie and a little pool, for crying out loud. Buddies probably did that. If it got too intense in the future, if it even came to that, she didn't have to go out with him again.

Decision made, Frannie pulled away from the curb, feeling better. For now, she was game for whatever Scotty Valens threw at her. Who knows? For once, where a man was concerned, she might just keep it simple and have a good time. What a concept. She kind of liked it.


End file.
